I love this series. I will not apologize for the gushing. You male types are probably rolling your eyes. Well your loss then.

In the seventh installment of the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs, FROST BURNED, we start out with Mercy and newly minted step-daughter Jesse out for some early morning Black Friday shopping. It should have been an ordinary day, the kind of normal day Mercy has been craving since she moved to the Tri-Cities and met the Alpha of the local werewolf pack, Adam Hauptman.

Instead, while Mercy and Jesse are out, the entire pack is kidnapped.

Then we're carried along as Mercy tries to make sure those who weren't kidnapped are safe, particularly the non-weres' loved ones. This includes Kyle, the divorce lawyer partner for the pack's third in command, and a close friend of Mercy's. With the pack in trouble, she has to call in outside help--everyone and every favor she can muster in order to save those she loves.

The majority of the PoV is Mercy's first-person narrative. I love Mercy's voice and observations, she's smart and strong. But here Briggs also adds some PoV from Adam, whose side of the story is as important as Mercy's. As usual, Brigg's prose is easy-to-read and engaging. We do get to see more of half-Fae Tad, the son of Mercy's former boss, who is coming into his own powers (I hope we see more of him in the future). We also see more of Kyle, who before now has only gotten brief scenes. People come and go in the series, but Briggs doesn't let them stagnate, and makes sure readers become fully attached to even the secondary characters.

As we try to figure out the "Who" and the "Why" of the abduction, the story begins to get a little slippery. Some things are obvious, but there's more to it than at first glance, and Briggs gets a little convoluted (she does that sometimes) about who's really behind it and why. If you haven't read previous books, the revelations will mean nothing to you and will be confusing. This makes the climax feel random when it really isn't. But the story moves quickly and it's easy to gloss over the confusing bits and just enjoy the story clear to it exciting end.

Briggs has built an interesting magical world with its rules, but not a whole lot is added here to the setting itself. FROST BURNED is less about showing us something new than it is using what's gone before, everything Briggs has built, to solve a problem caused by making normal people aware of paranormals. The result is an excellent addition to an already fantastic series.